Instantiating new staves

The DrumStaff context creates a five-line staff set up for
a typical drum set. Each instrument is shown with a different
symbol. The instruments are entered in drum mode following a
\drummode command, with each instrument specified by name.
For details, see Percussion staves.

\new DrumStaff {
\drummode { cymc hh ss tomh }
}

RhythmicStaff creates a single-line staff that only
displays the rhythmic values of the input. Real durations are
preserved. For details, see Showing melody rhythms.

\new RhythmicStaff { c4 d e f }

TabStaff creates a tablature with six strings in standard
guitar tuning. For details, see Default tablatures.

\new TabStaff { c4 d e f }

There are two staff contexts specific for the notation of ancient
music: MensuralStaff and VaticanaStaff. They are
described in Pre-defined contexts.

The GregorianTranscriptionStaff context creates a staff to
notate modern Gregorian chant. It does not show bar lines.

Each staff group context sets the property
systemStartDelimiter to one of the following values:
SystemStartBar, SystemStartBrace, or
SystemStartBracket. A fourth delimiter,
SystemStartSquare, is also available, but it must be
explicitly specified.

If there is only one staff in one of the staff types ChoirStaff
or StaffGroup, by default the bracket and the starting bar line
will not be displayed. This can be changed by overriding
collapse-height to set its value to be less than the number of
staff lines in the staff.

Note that in contexts such as PianoStaff and GrandStaff
where the systems begin with a brace instead of a bracket, another
property has to be set, as shown on the second system in the example.

The mensurstriche-layout where the bar lines do not show on the staves
but between staves can be achieved with a StaffGroup instead of
a ChoirStaff. The bar line on staves is blanked out by setting
the transparent property.

Selected Snippets

Nesting staves

The property systemStartDelimiterHierarchy can be used to make
more complex nested staff groups. The command \set
StaffGroup.systemStartDelimiterHierarchy takes an alphabetical list of
the number of staves produced. Before each staff a system start
delimiter can be given. It has to be enclosed in brackets and takes as
much staves as the brackets enclose. Elements in the list can be
omitted, but the first bracket takes always the complete number of
staves. The possibilities are SystemStartBar,
SystemStartBracket, SystemStartBrace, and
SystemStartSquare.

Separating systems

If the number of systems per page changes from page to page it is
customary to separate the systems by placing a system separator mark
between them. By default the system separator is blank, but can be
turned on with a \paper option.